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Ralph Merkle Quotes

Lighter computers and lighter sensors would let you have more function in a given weight, which is very important if you are launching things into space, and you have to pay by the pound to put things...

Ralph Merkle

Lighter computers and lighter sensors would let you have more function in a given weight, which is very important if you are launching things into space, and you have to pay by the pound to put things...

Tags: computers, space, important, you

Nanotechnology will let us build computers that are incredibly powerful. We'll have more power in the volume of a sugar cube than exists in the entire world today.

Ralph Merkle

Nanotechnology will let us build computers that are incredibly powerful. We'll have more power in the volume of a sugar cube than exists in the entire world today.

Tags: computers, today, power, world

About Author
Ralph C. Merkle (born February 2, 1952) is an American computer scientist and mathematician. He is one of the inventors of public-key cryptography, the inventor of cryptographic hashing, and more recently a researcher and speaker on cryonics.
Merkle is a renowned cryptographer, known for devising Merkle's Puzzles, co-inventing the Merkle–Hellman knapsack cryptosystem, and inventing cryptographic hashing (Merkle–Damgård construction) and Merkle trees. He has worked as a manager at Elxsi, research scientist at Xerox PARC (Palo Alto Research Center), and a nanotechnology theorist at Zyvex. Merkle has held positions as a Distinguished Professor at Georgia Tech, senior research fellow at IMM, faculty member at Singularity University, and board member at Alcor Life Extension Foundation. He received the IEEE Richard W. Hamming Medal in 2010 and has published works on molecular manipulation and self-replicating machines. Ralph Merkle is a grandnephew of baseball star Fred Merkle and is married to video game designer Carol Shaw. He serves on the board of directors of the cryonics organization Alcor Life Extension Foundation and appears in the science fiction novel The Diamond Age.

Many people in the world today are not starving because there is an inherent inability to produce food, they are starving because they are caught in the middle of political fights and blockades that h...

Ralph Merkle

Many people in the world today are not starving because there is an inherent inability to produce food, they are starving because they are caught in the middle of political fights and blockades that h...

Tags: food

Food is available, but it cannot be shipped into an area, so the people in that area suffer the consequences.

Ralph Merkle

Food is available, but it cannot be shipped into an area, so the people in that area suffer the consequences.

Tags: food

Because of technological limits, there is a certain amount of food that we can produce per acre. If we were to have intensive greenhouse agriculture, we could have much higher production.

Ralph Merkle

Because of technological limits, there is a certain amount of food that we can produce per acre. If we were to have intensive greenhouse agriculture, we could have much higher production.

Tags: food, limits, agriculture

Disease and ill health are caused largely by damage at the molecular and cellular level, yet today's surgical tools are too large to deal with that kind of problem.

Ralph Merkle

Disease and ill health are caused largely by damage at the molecular and cellular level, yet today's surgical tools are too large to deal with that kind of problem.

Tags: health

If you look at the human condition today, not everyone is well fed, has access to good medical care, or the physical basics that provide for a healthy and a happy life.

Ralph Merkle

If you look at the human condition today, not everyone is well fed, has access to good medical care, or the physical basics that provide for a healthy and a happy life.

Tags: medical, life, happy, good

If we can reduce the cost and improve the quality of medical technology through advances in nanotechnology, we can more widely address the medical conditions that are prevalent and reduce the level of...

Ralph Merkle

If we can reduce the cost and improve the quality of medical technology through advances in nanotechnology, we can more widely address the medical conditions that are prevalent and reduce the level of...

Tags: medical, technology, quality

Today we see a human population of over 6 billion people, many of whom have serious medical conditions, which either can't be treated or cannot be treated economically.

Ralph Merkle

Today we see a human population of over 6 billion people, many of whom have serious medical conditions, which either can't be treated or cannot be treated economically.

Tags: medical, today, people, see

We can grow crops less expensively because molecular manufacturing technology is inherently low cost.

Ralph Merkle

We can grow crops less expensively because molecular manufacturing technology is inherently low cost.

Tags: technology

The laws of physics should allow us to arrange things molecule by molecule and even atom by atom, and at some point it was inevitable that we would develop a technology that would let us do this.

Ralph Merkle

The laws of physics should allow us to arrange things molecule by molecule and even atom by atom, and at some point it was inevitable that we would develop a technology that would let us do this.

Tags: technology

If you think the technology is infeasible, you don't worry about what it might do and what its potential is.

Ralph Merkle

If you think the technology is infeasible, you don't worry about what it might do and what its potential is.

Tags: technology

If you look at the various strategies available for dealing with a new technology, sticking your head in the sand is not the most plausible strategy.

Ralph Merkle

If you look at the various strategies available for dealing with a new technology, sticking your head in the sand is not the most plausible strategy.

Tags: technology

If we attempt to block the development of new technology, we effectively have ensured that the most responsible parties will not develop them.

Ralph Merkle

If we attempt to block the development of new technology, we effectively have ensured that the most responsible parties will not develop them.

Tags: technology

A molecular manufacturing technology will let us build molecular surgical tools, and those tools will, for the first time, let us directly address the problems at the very root level.

Ralph Merkle

A molecular manufacturing technology will let us build molecular surgical tools, and those tools will, for the first time, let us directly address the problems at the very root level.

Tags: technology

One of the things that we can say with confidence is that we will have much lighter, much stronger materials, and this will reduce the cost of air flight, and the cost of rockets.

Ralph Merkle

One of the things that we can say with confidence is that we will have much lighter, much stronger materials, and this will reduce the cost of air flight, and the cost of rockets.

Tags: confidence, stronger, say